I was taking my son to grandma's house to mow her lawn and the first thing he did was put the gas can in the back, where it tipped over spilling fuel.

Anybody know what the best thing is to remove the smell that now fills our 850 wagon? (He got the third seat too!)

Wash the carpets and area with a mild deturgent. Let it air out. Then when it is dry, spray the interior, carpets, head liner, side walls etc. with Fabreeze. You may have to do this several times, but it will cancel out the oder. It was designed for this. Kid barfed in the back of my buddy's car, and this took care of it. Took three sprayings to do it.

Sam in Cinci. currently '91 940 GLE & '01 V70

David're reply is right on the money - use a carpet/fabric shampoo (if the seat is NOT leather; if leather, you will need a leather cleaner/conditioner instread) *after* you have pulled the seat and aired out as much as possible (if you can put it a very warm location for a few days, the vapor pressure of the light gas fraction should remove quite a bit of the odor. If the gas has saturated the packing in the seat, you may want to make sure the seat is left upside down (packing exposed facing upward) so that it's not trapped by the vinyl/leather. I have had some success with using a spray on / brush off carpet cleaner when I got gas on my front seat /passenger-side floor (don't ask how....). There was still a faint smell left, but it was much better than before I started (I also found that it worked when milk accidently leaked from a carton on a bag on the same bit of carpeting...I thought I got all of the residue up, but later had horrific problems with mold that grew on the residue on the carpet and backside material underneath..spot carpet cleaner took care of this problem pretty well.

Good luck with the clean-up.

S Churchill (back after a long hiatus)

Gasoline is a solvent and penetrates everything. Your best bet is to get the third seat out, try to wash with mild solution to remove as much as possible, and let the atmosphere carry away the volatile compounds you can smell.

As to the carpet, you may have to replace that. If it's the back of the wagon, my guess is there's a panel that will come out enirely (it did in my 745 and 945). At that point, your car wouldn't be full of fumes anymore. You can try cleaning the carpeting, but even if you remove the smell the carpet would likely be stained. If it were me, I'd go to a dismantler or salvage yard and try to get a replacement for the whole carpeted panel, but do my damndest to get the seat clean enough to return to the car.
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(98 S70 T5SE misc mods, mostly lighting) (92 940GLE)